Because of the 05/06 Clips stellar, consistent defense, I blindly
assume we are still one of the better defensive teams in the league.Yet here we are – having given up >50% FGs
to our last 4 opponents, including today’s McGrady-less Rockets.We rank a disgusting 22nd in the league
in FG% against.And it’s glaring - we don’t
rotate, our help defense is non-existent (Kaman, nice game, but I’m looking at
you).Our perimeter D, never a Clipper
strong point (though with Q on the floor, generally proficient), is now
bordering on abysmal.Ironically, the
much maligned Dunleavy offense has of late found life, with great balance this afternoon, some very nice possessions and a bit more patience in
running sets.If it’s not one thing…

The Good:

No Sam?We Can Find Points Cause We’re F’in
Talented – Shaun paced us with 21,
while Kaman, Brand, Maggette and Mobley each had at least 14. We need
players to step up and make up for Sam and the occasional Brand offensive “lapse”
(i.e. <20 pts).We got
that.There’s still a lot to complain
about in our half-court sets but we are talented enough to play our
predictable, “isolation-offense” and put points on the board.So yes, even against a strong defensive team,
we can score.Be nice to see us
grow more offensively (surely, Dunleavy Sr., you have some tricks up your
sleeve)… but we can get the job done within our current system.

Shaun
Livingston (all growns up) – Directing traffic, driving to the basket with
confidence, draining the short pull-up, finishing, defensive intensity…
he’s put together a string of games that should be making everyone a
believer.Today he went for 21p / 9r
/ 6a / 2s / 1b - very nice line,
Shaun.

Chris
Kaman – I think rockin’ the white headband has really worked out for him.The main thing to love today was Chris’
energy and passion.His head (for
Chris) was in the game, looking to attack Yao,
playing with confidence, and rebounding very well.Just extremely active on both ends of
the floor.He has some of the
prettiest low-post moves in the league, and he unloaded the powerful
offensive arsenal at his disposal.If
he can just learn to take care of the ball, and rotate on D, we could have
a helluva force in the middle for years to come.

The Bad:

Corey
Maggette – I’m a Corey guy and he had a nice game, especially considering he's still not 100%… but doesn’t he look completely out of sync
on almost every offensive set?Is
he held out of practice, so he can enter a game with no clue of how to
space?Only by sheer force of will
and immense physical talent does he make something out of nothing so
consistently.I’m not sure what the
Dunleavy gameplan is with regard to utilizing Maggette, but he has to find a way to better
leverage a Top 50 talent within his system.

Aaron
Williams – sir, please join us, we’re still waiting … oh and try to
not get completely owned by Howard next time we play these guys…

Everyone
Is Hurt – Maggette is still ailing (I think he’s looking to drive less in
part because of the Achilles, also limited his minutes today), TT (knee)
and now Q (back spasms) are gone, Sam’s got the plantar fasciitis...

The Ugly:

Rafer
Alston!?Guy shoots 37% FG for the
season, career 38%… sure, the Rockets space the floor well, but our perimeter D was
ridiculously bad.Just simple
things for which there is no excuse (e.g. Shaun’ll go down to double Battier
at the foul line, not pop back up fast enough to get a hand in the face of
Alston; Maggette or Mobley getting lost on a switch leaving Battier / Head
/ Alston wide-open).Rockets had
lost 3 in a row coming in without McGrady - Head and Alston stepped up,
combining for a gaudy 40 points.Yao
got his (as expected) and their backcourt production (Bonzi also notched
12 on 50% shooting) was the difference in this game.

Rockets
end up shooting 39-74 (53%), and a disturbing 8-17 (47%) from 3.

Clippers were 2-6 (33%) from 3 – ugh, gross.

Daniel
Ewing – he’s been playing OK, but now has the
distinction of owning the single worst offensive possession in Clipper
history.In case you don’t remember
it or missed it - 2nd quarter, 4:06 mark - Ewing dribbles in
circles at just below mid-court for about 15 seconds, eventually ending
the horror by turning the ball over (carrying).I mean, wow, just… wow.

To me, the afternoon served as yet another reminder that the
06/07 Clips are potentially a .500 team that will beat up on the little guys, and somewhat consistently
lose to the elite teams.Unless we can
learn to put together a complete basketball game (that’s right, both ends of
the floor) we are very unlikely to make the playoffs.Sucks, but the rest of the West got better
while we took a slight step back and are now riddled with injuries.During his post-game
interview, Brand noted:"One of the
things that's missing from last year are energy, defensive rotations, and the
fire and will to win. We've got to get that back."That’s more than one thing Elton (and
Clipperblog has a few more if you’re listening) but yeah, basically, you’re
spot on…

During the 4th quarter at Staples, jumbotron
featured a Clips highlight reel (set to Gorillaz tune “Feel Good Inc”).As I sat there watching glorious dunk after
block after dunk after block, I thought to myself “wow, I really, really love
these guys, we’re athletic, we have size, we have so, much, talent…”Season’s still
less than ½ over, and I think we’re starting to show some signs.It’s been a rough stretch and things are looking grim, so this might be
wishful thinking - but I still believe in this team (with or without Iverson), our talent, and I think, at the end of the day, we have heart.

C’mon guys – let’s get it
together.Let’s f’in do this.

Posted Wednesday, October 29 at 3:20PM

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Comments

Great, insightful recap. Another frustration of mine when comparing this year's team and last is the pretty much unexplainable drop in free throw proficiency.

Last year's team outscored their opponents by an average of +1.9 points, getting help in some of those close wins by shooting 79.09% (third best in the NBA) at the line. This year's team is getting to the line about 2 more times per game, but has dropped to 16th in the NBA at 75.38%.

Our point differential this year is -2.7, and since the team is largely the same from last year, this discrepancy really bugs the shit out me.

Word is Bond John..
It seems obvious that all this bullsh*t is a coaching issue. The good news is MD makes moves and learns to adjust. Though it may be at a slow pace, changes ARE made. Sam was the main reason we were fired up last year with all this "SwAgGeR" So he needs to re-fire our asses up again. Even Lawler is staring to complain!
I know the Clips will eventually Step-Up so we can find our way to the promised land (Western Conference Finals vs San Antonio)

A note on the Ewing failure. Dunleavy grabbed Shaun right away when that happened and sent him to the scorer's table. After thinking a second he sent him back to the bench for another possession or two. No point in absolutely crushing the kid. Good move.

Add Mutumbo to the list of 7 footers Shaun has dunked on.

On Livingston's defense:
I could be wrong, but in Dunleavy's scheme its not usually the role of the perimeter guy who doubles down in the low post to pop back out to contest the 3 from his own man. It's too much ground to cover, especially from the post guys who can pass like Duncan and Yao. Generally there should be rotation that results in Shaun sprinting on the kickout to get to the far corner, aka Camp Bowen, and get the last guy on the swing around. Everyone moves over one man and even on a repost they just go around again.

The defense seemed to get better once they abandoned the double team on Yao actually. An almost certain 2 is better than an almost certain 3.

Q had Bonzi's number, Maggette couldn't do a thing to slow him down.

That sort of precision on defense happened last year but it hasn't been happening so far this one and its cost the last two games. Yesterday in particular every Clipper on the court did enough to win, but Alston got too hot and they couldn't overcome the 3 ball.

Props to Chris for going right at Yao and being moderately successful at it. He did particularly well in the rebounding department.

The problem there was, once again, EB disappearing in the second half. Why is Chris asked to go to war with Yao when EB vs anyone else is obviously the better matchup? Unclear if this is coach not calling the play for him or Shaun and/or EB not executing.

How about starting Sam & Liv(for Q)?
It's time. Both might end up having excellent on court chemistry. Just helping each other to bring back that lost swagger in big way. Liv is ready to explode in bits and pieces. He is doing it his way & doing it better than our expectations.

Does anyone else find it perplexing that Kaman basicaly refuses to pass the ball out of the post? Part of the shit-poor offense is due to the fact that he almost NEVER kicks it out to start the ball moving around the perimiter. I'm tired of seeing him just throw the ball at the basket like a fucking retard. His offense is getting better, but he still talks far too many wretched shots.

Sam is getting too old to start. He's not going to be able to play as many minutes, his body won't allow him to. If he trys to play too much, he'll lose his effectiveness. He needs to start thinking in terms of coming off the bench and providing a spark.

Against the spurs we allowed 46 percent 3 point shooting, against the jazz we allowed 53 percent, against the blazers we allowed 60 percent and against the rockets last night we allowed 47 percent. We have to do something about these friggin 3 pointers and we need to stop taking three point shots untill we find someone who can do better than 40 pecent.

Jake - great point about FT shooting, and (hopefully) this is variance and we improve / normalize throughout the rest of the year.

But because Brand shoots a lot of our FTs (he had a possibly abberant year 05/06 shooting 78%, currently 75%, and career 74%), we may see a slight drop off from last year's FT %.

John R:

"I could be wrong, but in Dunleavy's scheme its not usually the role of the perimeter guy who doubles down in the low post to pop back out to contest the 3 from his own man. It's too much ground to cover, especially from the post guys who can pass like Duncan and Yao. Generally there should be rotation that results in Shaun sprinting on the kickout to get to the far corner, aka Camp Bowen, and get the last guy on the swing around. Everyone moves over one man and even on a repost they just go around again."

Nice breakdown - thanks for it. In the post, I was referring to a couple possessions where Livingston popped down to the FT line to double Battier. Rockets space the floor well, and so there wasn't enough time to get a rotation in to Alston (who Shaun left open twice, sitting at the top of the arc). I think it's on Shaun in these instances, but yeah, even from the stripe it's hard to get back. Prolly though, doubling Battier at the FT line not the best idea.

I like your point about the Clips lack of "defensive precision". That's the perfect phrase. We had it for large stretches of games last season, this year, it's maybe a half of precise basketball (if we're lucky).

When a small guard drives by our perimeter D and gets an open lane the bigs don't plug the hole like last year. FIX: Talk together and bigs don't tolerate small guys in the lane.

Our double teams come after 2-3 seconds when a big gets the ball in the post. The bigs are now just waiting for the perimeter guy to collapse so the big can assist in an open three. FIX: Collapse on the big post-up immidiately or not at all (we are not getting steals anyway and I would rather have a big try a 10 footer over our big than a 3-pt specialist getting open looks).
OFFENSE:
1. Brand needs ~20 shots per game
2. Set screens for Brand
3. Bigs start kicking the ball out if you dont catch the ball in motion close to the hole - dribbling and trying to create our own shot is not working (you are getting doubled/trippled coz our shooters don't command respect).

I really think we are close to having a real team here. For the first time I heard Livingston take public leadership by saying he is failing getting us going and he also admitted we suck and need to change. At least we are no longer in denial - step 1 towards progress...